The Socialist Current Group

The Socialist Current journal began publication in 1956 and was subtitled “Incorporating the International Socialist” which was the journal of the Revolutionary Socialist League of Ted Grant at the time. The link with the Grantites did not last long and by the following year a Socialist Current Group was established, it leading members being Frank Rowe, Morry Solloff and Sam Levy.

For the next three decades the group published Socialist Current as a stapled journal, occasionally an oddly sized, over-large ‘tabloid’ on a monthly basis and had a prodigious outpouring of pamphlets and supplements covering topics ranging from the imprisonment of Hugo Blanco, the struggles of the Zengakuren in Japan to CND and the Aldermaston March in Britain..

Politically the group was Trotskyist but seemed to embrace an eclectic mix of politics- for example, in the late 1960s at least, the SC Group was close to the US Spartacists, distributed their materials and republished some of their statements, sometimes in pamphlet form yet, at one and the same time, Socialist Current was a signatory to calls by libertarian groups, from an anarchist or syndicalist background to organise explicitly libertarian socialist contingents on major demonstrations…

Sometimes the numbering of the journals was erratic or non-existent so we have organised our holdings accordingly:

To quote Pauline Rowe: The worst you can say about Socialist Current, which peaked with a membership of 10, was that it got nowhere in its 32 years. The best is that it introduced a few people to Socialist ideas.

Where we stand

Splits&Fusions will showcase documents from the various tendencies of the Trotskyist movement in Britain.
Items will be presented without editorial comment, beyond a brief description of the group.
We welcome pointers to material we may have overlooked.
We would like to hear from anyone who can fill gaps in our collections. Donations of materials are always welcome, as are loans- we will scan and return anything sent safely and promptly..